Former Sen. Scott Brown says 'everyone to blame' for shutdown

Knocking President Barack Obama and Democrats in Washington for blaming Republicans for the federal government shutdown, former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown said “everyone’s to blame” for the closure that started Tuesday morning amid continuing political gridlock.

Knocking President Barack Obama and Democrats in Washington for blaming Republicans for the federal government shutdown, former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown said “everyone’s to blame” for the closure that started Tuesday morning amid continuing political gridlock.

Defeated last year by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Brown said he had spoken with some of his former colleagues and suggested they pass bills to fund areas of the government “piecemeal,” as has been done with the military.

“There is an opportunity for the Republicans to send 10 or 20 or 30 bills and put them on [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid’s desk and let him then reject them, showing that in fact Republicans are willing to compromise,” Brown said during an early afternoon appearance on Fox News.

“Just to take it a step further, the president is blaming the Republicans. With all due respect to the president, everybody’s to blame,” Brown added.

Brown criticized Obama, Reid and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for not getting behind a plan he described as a compromise that would have funded the government while delaying the Affordable Care Act for a year. “That would have solved the problem for another year,” Brown said, adding he would have supported it.

While Republicans see Obamacare as an unaffordable, heavy-handed approach to health care policy, Obama and Senate Democrats have stood solidly behind the Affordable Care Act, touting cost savings and life-saving implications associated with the effort to help millions of uninsured Americans gain access to insurance.

“The Affordable Care Act is a law that passed the House. It passed the Senate. The Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. It was a central issue in last year’s election. It is settled, and it is here to stay,” Obama said Tuesday. “And because of its funding sources, it’s not impacted by a government shutdown.”

Saying many of his own legislative priorities had not been approved, Obama criticized Republicans for being unwilling to let go of their differences with Democrats over a health care law adopted in March 2010.

“There are a whole bunch of things that I’d like to see passed through Congress that the House Republicans haven’t passed yet, and I’m not out there saying, well, I’m not -- I’m going to let America default unless Congress does something that they don’t want to do,” Obama said during remarks delivered in the Rose Garden. “That’s not how adults operate. Certainly that’s not how our government should operate.”

Brown suggested it’s appropriate to continue fighting for changes in the Affordable Care Act. “To get rid of Obamacare and to delay its implementation - listen, everyone knows it’s a job killer right now,” he said.

While Democrats have blamed Republicans for the shutdown, describing them as insistent on repeating unwinnable health care battles, Brown said Democrats are putting their support for Obamacare above other priorities.

Page 2 of 2 -
“Bottom line is they’re putting their personal partisan interests before our country’s interests right now,” he said.

After host Gretchen Carlson requested “straight talk” from Brown and asked him whether he would run for office in New Hampshire, Brown did not answer that question but talked about putting his Wrentham home up for sale and said he and his wife Gail Huff haven’t agreed on their next move.

“First of all we’re downsizing,” Brown said. “When we walk in you hear an echo because the kids are obviously not there and we have a fairly large house that is big quite honestly. We’re not quite sure if we’re moving to New Hampshire which we have a home - I’m ninth generation from New Hampshire - or someplace near water or something, a little bit more palatable.”

In addition to being mentioned as a possible candidate for statewide office in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Brown, a Fox News contributor and attorney at Nixon Peabody, over the summer visited Iowa, a proving ground for presidential candidates and the state where Huff is from.

The New Hampshire Union-Leader, noting Brown’s public appearance Monday night in the Granite State, published an editorial Tuesday urging the former senator, who owns a home in Rye, N.H., to “stop flirting” with New Hampshire.

“As long as he is a suspected candidate for Senate, every time Brown comes to New Hampshire he makes [Sen.] Jeanne Shaheen stronger and the state Republican Party relatively weaker. His penchant for talking incessantly about how often he voted with Democrats while in the Senate does little for GOP morale or fundraising,” the editorial said. “Brown needs to either move here and announce a run or state definitively that he will not be a candidate. The ladies love his flirting, it is true, but the one who loves it the most is Jeanne Shaheen. Every time he bats an eye, she cashes a check. He needs to make his intentions clear or turn his big, brown eyes elsewhere.”